Mental Imagery on Listening to Beethoven's Music

[Prometheus]

This may have been discussed before, but it is widely assumed that people think of certain colours to certain chords of music and that phrases, sections or pieces of music inspire images, sequences or scenes in the listeners mind.

Now explicity obvious pieces of Beethoven inspire certain imagery. The Pastoral, Creatures of Prometheus, Spring sonata. But what about the others. For example, when I hear the 2nd movement of the 7th Symphony I imagine, and for reasons I dont quite yet understand, a battle scene in WWI.

Perhaps people could discuss here what they imagine or see when listening to Beethoven, or if they imagine anything at all.

[Chris]

I see the scores. Perhaps because I've spent a lot of time following along in the scores while listening. But even as a child, I remember imagining notes on a page when listening to music.

[Hofrat]

Various musical imagery in Beethoven's music:
1. the axe blow in Egmont.
2. Leonore's shivering in the dungeon scene of Fidelio.
3. the rolling boulder in the dungeon scene of Fidelio.
4. the door knocking in the opening scene of Fidelio.
5. the bird calls in the 6th symphony.
6. Wellington's victory.

[Peter]

Well I hope people do imagine something and are not so clinical as Toscanini who said that to some the Eroica was about Napoleon but to him it was Symphony in Eb!
There are many different example, some obvious such as when Les Adieux I always picture this carriage taking the Archduke away from Vienna and of course the opposite scene on his return. With the 5th symphony I always see a brilliantly sunny day that is so joyful - more so to me than the finale of the 9th which is a more spiritual rather than earthly joy.

[Quijote]

Leaving aside the more obvious "programmatic" pieces alluded to by Prometheus, the mental imagery I am currently prone to is :

The 'cello sonatas : poor maligned basso continuo players rising up in revolt and beheading everyone in their path, such is the glee they feel at being emancipated from the yoke of tyranny;

Symphony n° 1 : Dysfunctional osmosis in the wild grasses of upper Patagonia;

Symphony n° 9 : male rage bordering on murderous frenzy, with a soupçon of rape. Oops, not me, that was Susan McClary;

Piano sonata Op. 106 : a roasted pheasant with game chips, dark sauce and served with a Chateau-Neuf de Pape, or a Médoc;

The late quartets : deaf old composer, thinking to himself : "Ach, just wait till Bartok sees these!"

[Hofrat]

May I add another to my list:
7. The drunkard's belch at the beginning of the 4th movement of the Archduke trio.

[Quijote]

I should, in fairness to Prometheus, give a more serious response. Scriabin certainly equated colours with chords, and even more famously we have the colour-coding theories posited by the Schoenberg - Kandinsky duo.

I do wonder though, that if we had first heard the Sixth symphony without being told its title and intended 'programme' if we would automatically come up with 'pastoral' feelings; that if we had heard the Third symphony without being given the title 'Eroica' and the Bonaparte connection whether we would have heard anything 'heroic'. In this sense I could well find myself in agreement with Toscanini. These questions seem not to apply to Symphonies 1, 2, 4 and 8 : you hear them without any received opinion as to the imagery you should entertain; though this is not to say they do not create purely subjective responses/imagery in each listener.

As to the second movement of the Seventh reminding you of some WW1 battle : this is curious, but I feel there may be some sort of cinematic cliché at work here, Prometheus. I vaguely recall seeing some battle scene portrayed at the cinema where all the action and noises (soldiers surging across the battlefield, bombs, grenades, rifle fire, screams and cries and so on) being played out silently, but with a sound track employing some slow classical (or baroque) music (and I’m not referring to the Vietnam war film ‘Apocalypse Now’).

Also, these mental images that Beethoven’s music supposedly engenders in our minds : these are, naturally, culturally conditioned responses; how do people from other non-Western musical cultures perceive it?

[Quijote]

May I add another to my list:
7. The drunkard's belch at the beginning of the 4th movement of the Archduke trio.

You seem, Hofrat, to entertain decidedly visceral mental images when listening to Beethoven.

[Quijote]

I see the scores. Perhaps because I've spent a lot of time following along in the scores while listening. But even as a child, I remember imagining notes on a page when listening to music.

Do you mean that you "see" the scores in a more general "photographic-memory" sense, or do you mean that as you listen, let us say, to the 1st movement of the Ninth that you really see/hear every instrument's notated part? Or do you mean that as a violinist you tend to follow the (1st / 2nd) violin parts as you may well have played yourself? This would certainly be my case with B's cello sonatas.

Speaking for myself, when I listen to an orchestral score I know well, I too fall all-too-easily into visualising the written notes, but I tend to ignore ("not visualize") the transposing parts, simply because that throws me off track. It's the same when I read through a score, I tend to focus on the string and (non-transposing) wind section, as I don't transpose easily in my inner ear, I'm afraid.

[Prometheus]

you might be right there Phillip about works having preconditioned scenes. Pastoral, Eroica etc. but what about those that don't. Chris pointed out that he imagines notes, and im presuming he means with all of B, or Baroque and Classical, music. It seems to me that without a certain precondition people assosciate the music they listen to with something more specifically indivdual to them.

What made someone suddenly think "Moonlight", or "Emperor"?

Philip, I do remember a scene from Path of Glory, but there is no music on that scene just synch-sound.

[Prometheus]

Peter do you mean the Allegro or the Adante. I can hardly imagine the Allegro con brio engendering bright joyous sunshine. If it does, however, that would be very interesting indeed.

[Sorrano]

May I add another to my list:
7. The drunkard's belch at the beginning of the 4th movement of the Archduke trio.

And what do you suppose one might imagine at the "hook" motif of the finale of the Second Symphony? Some have suggested a "belch" while others have hinted at elsewhere....

[Sorrano]

When I was working on the E Major Sonata (I don't recall what number or what opus) I envisioned in the 1st movement the footfall of many soldiers in marching.

[Chris]

Do you mean that you "see" the scores in a more general "photographic-memory" sense, or do you mean that as you listen, let us say, to the 1st movement of the Ninth that you really see/hear every instrument's notated part? Or do you mean that as a violinist you tend to follow the (1st / 2nd) violin parts as you may well have played yourself? This would certainly be my case with B's cello sonatas.

It depends. If it's a score I have looked at often, I see it exactly as it is on the page, including its location on the physical page. In other words, I think of this part being at the top of the page, that part at the bottom. If it's something for which I have never seen the score, I mentally transcribe it as I go, imagining how it would look on the page. I wouldn't actually be able to write it down exactly and correctly - it's just imagination. I find printed music very beautiful in itself. Engraving is an art all its own, I guess!

I actually have mental pictures more when I am playing than listening, which is odd, because more of my concentration should be required. Often when I am practicing a passage, my mind is wandering, I am daydreaming, remembering things from a long time ago, etc. Then whenever I go to play the pieces, those passages always remind me of what I was thinking about while learning them. For example, the Bagatelle Op. 119, No. 3 reminds me of surface integrals, since I was thinking about my Calculus III homework while I was first playing that piece when I was in college. The second movement of the Sonata Op. 49, No. 1 makes me think of the woods near my house when I was young, because I just happened to be thinking about that when I was leaning it. The exposition of the 3rd movement of the "Les Adieux" sonata makes me think of a certain episode of Star Trek that was on in the background when I was learning it. That's a weird one!

[Peter]

Peter do you mean the Allegro or the Adante. I can hardly imagine the Allegro con brio engendering bright joyous sunshine. If it does, however, that would be very interesting indeed.

No, sorry I should have said the finale of the 5th! This is an interesting topic and I recall a friend of mine lamenting the boring uninspiring names of Classical works - sonata, symphony, concerto. Of course names were generally appended by publishers to help sales of more popular works but it wasn't really until the Romantics and later Debussy that we get proper descriptive imagery. The Pastoral symphony of Beethoven has been mentioned but it seems obvious to me even without the title - maybe we are not as in touch with nature these days, but surely you'd have to be pretty dead not to pick up on the Nightingale, Quail and Cuckoo in the slow movement?